Kabul: death toll rises in deadliest 24 hours Afghan capital has seen in years

Kabul: death toll rises in deadliest 24 hours Afghan
capital has seen in years

More
than 40 killed, including civilians, police cadets and one international
service member, and hundreds injured in wave of attacks claimed by Taliban

A wave of attacks in Kabul has
killed more than 40 people, including a Nato soldier, in the deadliest 24 hours
in the Afghan capital in years.

Most of
the deceased were civilians or young police cadets, while Nato confirmed one
international service member was among the dead.

The deadliest attack occurred on
Friday when aTalibansuicide bomber, dressed in police
uniform, detonated an explosives vest outside the gates of a police academy in
the middle of a crowd of recruits waiting to return after the weekend.

A few
hours later, another two explosions went off in the Qasaba neighbourhood north
of the airport, followed by sporadic gunfire, when insurgents tried to storm a
US special operations base known as Camp Integrity. One service member was
killed, as were eight civilian contractors and two insurgents, according to Col
Brian Tribus, a spokesman for international forces inAfghanistan.

“A
coalition facility [Camp Integrity] was attacked at 10.15pm, 7 August. One
Resolute Support service member and two insurgent attackers were killed,”
Tribus said in a statement, without providing more information. The individual
is thefifthinternational service member killed in
Afghanistan this year.

Following
the attack on the US base, military jets circled the skies above Kabul into the
early morning hours.

The Afghan
capital had been on alert since early on Friday, when a massivetruck bombexploded
outside an Afghan army base in a residential area called Shah Shaheed, close to
the centre of Kabul.

The blast
killed at least 20 people and injured several hundred, despite occurring at 1am
when the streets are less busy. Most injuries were light, caused by splintered
glass, but dozens of people remained in the hospital on Saturday morning.

All casualties of the truck bomb
blast were civilian, according to Kabir Amiri, spokesman for Kabul hospitals.
The blast left a massive crater in the ground, and shattered dozens of shop
fronts along the road.

While the
truck bomb exploded outside a Ministry of Defence base, the exact purpose
remains unclear, and the timing of the attack was unusual. According to a
security source speaking to the Guardian, the US military frequently visits the
Afghan army base in Shah Shaheed, which also contains a facility housing
several high-level detainees.

A Taliban
spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, said the group was responsibile for the attack on
the police academy, but no one has yet claimed the truck bomb attack or the
assault on Camp Integrity.

The
attacks add to a rising number of civilians caught up in the violence of the
war. In a newreporton
Wednesday, the UN said civilian casualties were higher than at any point during
the war in Afghanistan. During the first six months of 2015, almost 5,000
civilians were killed or wounded.

Underlying
these numbers is a change in tactics by the insurgents. The first half of 2015
saw an increase of 78% in suicide and complex attacks, such as the ones that
shook Kabul on Friday.

As a
result, women and children are increasingly among the killed or injured. About
a quarter of the casualties of the Afghan war have been children. According to
Zafar Hashemi, a presidential spokesman, the truck bomb wounded 240 people,
including 47 women and 33 children.

With at
least 35 dead, the attacks made Friday the deadliest 24 hours in Kabul since
December 2011, when a suicide bomber killed more than 50 worshippers outside
the Abu Fazl mosque during the Shia holy day of Ashura.

The three
attacks took place a week after the announcement of the death of Taliban leader
Mullah Omar. According to Afghan intelligence, Omar died more than two years
ago in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.

The
pronouncement of Omar’s death, and the implication that the leadership has
deceived the majority of the movement’s members for years, has plunged the Taliban
into turbulence and unleashed a power struggle. A leadership council last week
appointed Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who had been Omar’s deputy since 2010, to head
the movement, but he is facing staunch internal resistance, including from
members of Omar’s family.

Following the announcement, the
Taliban postponed a second round of reconciliation talks with Afghan government
representatives scheduled to take place in the Pakistani hill town Murree.

While the
next round is unlikely to get off the ground before the insurgents reach some
consensus around a new leader, the recent violence could be an attempt to
display military power ahead of talks. With the attacks, the insurgents
demonstrate to the Afghan government they are still capable of striking at the
heart of the fortified capital.

The
attacks might also be a signal to Taliban fighters that the disarray in the
movement should not be an obstacle to continued jihad against government
security forces and their foreign backers.

Kabul: death toll rises in deadliest 24 hours Afghan capital has seen in years
Reviewed by Ajit Kumar
on
9:00 PM
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